


Entirely Different But Still Sort Of The Same

by maisierita



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, F/M, I'm not British but I did the best I could, Post-Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, There isn't enough fic about TenToo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 17:06:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3389564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maisierita/pseuds/maisierita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emo!Alt!Ten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entirely Different But Still Sort Of The Same

**Author's Note:**

> Repost from 2009. My one and only foray into DW fandom. Unbetaed because I figured SapphireMusings would kill me.

It's a funny thing, he thinks. Less than a day old, but with a millennium's worth of memories rattling around inside his brain.

It's been 18 hours and 37 minutes since he was born, so to speak. One thousand, one hundred seventeen minutes as time is measured on Earth, which is how he supposes he'll have to measure time from now on. Sixty-seven thousand twenty seconds. Twenty and a half seconds, to be specific, and that's one thing, at least, that has not changed; he still knows the passage of time, down to its smallest increment. This is how he has spent his first day, or the portion of it that wasn't occupied with helping save the universe: at war with himself – one part of his brain busily cataloging differences, the other trying furiously not to.

Rose is doing it too, comparing and contrasting him with his other self, but she's doing it without all the existential angst. "You all right?"

"I'm always all right," he says, which is no more a lie now than it ever was. Or it is just as much of a lie, perhaps. Still. "He'll have taken her memory by now."

"You're sure about that, then?" Rose is quiet, contemplative, and keeping four feet away from him at all times, always just out of arm's reach. Whether that's for her protection or his own, he's not sure, and he's not certain enough of this new self yet to press her for a reason.

"Humans and Time Lords don't mix," is what he says instead. "Not like that. Her brain won't be able to adjust to the influx of information. He either takes her memories, or she'll die. Risky proposition anyway, taking her memories. If he doesn't do it quite right, if she remembers even a bit of it …" Well, then, Donna will die in agony, and that's too horrible to seriously contemplate, but it's out of his hands now. Most likely, he'll never even know how it all turns out, which is a situation he's not at all accustomed to and one he is quickly coming to find he doesn't care for. He shrugs in lieu of speaking, and the play of cloth over his shoulder feels strange. This new skin's itchy, like it's not done growing yet. He doesn't remember that from any of his other regenerations, but then again, this wasn't regeneration, not quite, even though the underlying energy is the same. "He knows what he's doing."

"And how about you, then?" Rose asks. She's next to him at the window now, looking out at the grounds of her father's mansion. The man who's sort of her father, at least, the way he himself is sort of the Doctor. There are a lot of sort ofs, here, like the way Rose is sort of the same as the woman he remembers, and sort of completely different, two years separate experience changing them both. Outside, there's a dusting of snow covering the grass – real snow, not ash, not an artificially induced atmospheric disturbance – and everything looks shiny and pristine, brilliant. Rose herself looks luminescent, and he has to look away periodically, because she's dazzling, too bright to watch for long. "You're part human now."

"Entirely different situation," he says, which is more than a bit of a lie, too. It's not as different as all that, but at least he's not at risk for neural overload like Donna. "I'm mostly Time Lord. Got a Time Lord brain, structurally. The other bits don't matter as much."

"Don't they?" she asks, more than passing curious. She reaches out, her fingers ghosting lightly over the skin of his arm, and he has to resist the instinct to flinch, to pull back and scratch away the flaring itch of contact. Heat gathers low in his belly, curling warmth, and this, he thinks, this must be human desire, intense and physical. Terrifying. He _wants_ , with everything he is, body, mind, and what passes for his soul, and he wonders whether this is another way in which he's unique, Time Lord need channeled through an inadequate part-human endocrine system or whether this is how humans feel all the time, faced with something they crave.

He does pull back then, restoring distance and something resembling sanity, and takes a long, slowly measured breath, drawing air into lungs that feel suddenly starved. His one heart's thumping wildly in his chest, skewed and asymptotic, struggling to find a single rhythm that works as well as two. He thinks he might be more human than he'd first supposed, that it's more than just heart and attitude he's inherited from Donna. He's sweating, and his skin's prickling strangely, like there are tiny motes of energy running roughshod over his body. There doesn't seem to be enough air in the room, quite. His next breath feels strange and ragged, and he thinks he just might break into pieces, scatter into atoms and wander endlessly among the zeppelin-filled sky of this peculiar, other Earth. _Like Astrid_ , he thinks, except Astrid's not here, and not even motes of energy can slip unaided between locked universes.

"Doctor." Rose looks at him, eyes wide and soft, glimmering at the edges. She touches him again, lightly on the arm, and the contact grounds him even as it burns. "I think you'd better sit down, yeah? Have some tea. A bit of something to eat."

"I," he says, but that's all he can manage of that sentence, because he's not sure any more who he even is, what it means to be part Time Lord, part human. Life as a Time Lord he understands, and he remember what it was to be entirely human, but he's got no idea about this half-state existence except that it is agony, forced to remember in every instant a self that he's no longer fully capable of being. Maybe Donna is the one better off after all, with no memories of being _more,_ of ever being anything greaterthan what she is permitted to be, now.

He pulls himself back from the edge with a shudder. Rose is still there, patient and radiating something that is not quite sympathy. He makes himself meet her eyes, if only briefly. "Tea would be lovely."

"And a biscuit, I think," she says. She leads him away from the window and makes him sit down. If she notices the way he's shivering, she doesn't feel the need to comment on it. "You didn't eat with us on the zeppelin home. Even a biological metacrisis needs food, yeah?"

"Absolutely," he says, though honestly, he hasn't any idea. There's never been another like him and he hopes to every available god that there never will be. He's a metacrisis that is mostly crisis. Rose brushes her lips against his forehead, and the contact is pure torture, sending his heart into spasms, wild and out of control. He wraps his arms around himself after she leaves, struggling to stop himself trembling. His lack of success in this endeavor is astounding, and he wonders, still shivering, whether it's his body or his emotions that are the more intractable, if this also is some facet of being part human that he's going to need to become accustomed to.

Later, he feels better – if not exactly like himself, then at least like someone familiar. Jackie has clucked and tutted at him, and forced him to eat an incomprehensibly large amount of food: hot buttered toast and jam and eggs and stewed tomatoes and link after link of sausage – "a proper English breakfast" – and of course there had been tea, piping hot and fragrant, full of milk and sugar and pungent, potent tannins.

"You all right now?" Rose is curled up in the chair closest to the fireplace, with one leg folded beneath her. A single lock of hair has fallen forwards, framing her face, and he's glad she's across the room, because otherwise the temptation to reach out and push the hair behind her ear might be too strong to resist. As it is, he has to force himself to look away, to stare down into the tea cup he's still holding.

"Better," he says, and it is true enough that he can look at her and smile, a bit.

"'s just," she says, "that you keep, I dunno, frowning at your tea, and it hasn't done anything but sit there and be tea."

"Oh, that." He peers down into the tea cup again, speculatively, and just like that, just for an instant, he is himself again. "It tastes a bit off. Not in a bad way, mind you, but the flavor isn't quite right. I can't decide whether it's the tea or my taste buds that have changed. Everything else tasted quite usual, so I presumed at first that it was just the tea itself, but why only the tea, do you suppose? Different universe, different tea, is that it? Or maybe it really is my taste buds that have changed – human papillae along with the heart, perhaps? – and there's something unique about the chemical composition of tea that causes a specific reaction in the chemoreceptors that toast and eggs don't. "

Rose smiles at him, a wide, wonderful smile, and the pressure that's been constricting his chest eases just a bit, because if he is babbling and Rose is smiling, then the universe has not come to its end just yet, despite appearances. "It's the tea. Mum noticed it also, soon as we arrived."

He grins back at her. "That's brilliant, it is. Something about the tannins, do you think? Or is it the tea leaves themselves?" He sticks a finger in the tea and tastes it thoughtfully, squinting down into the cup. "First thing I need," he says ruefully, after a moment, "is a new pair of specs."

Rose laughs at him. "Oh, come off it. You look clever enough without them. Cross my heart."

He raises an eyebrow. "Ta very much, I think. But it's got nothing to do with looking clever. If I'm ever going to watch the telly or read a newspaper, I'll need a pair of glasses. This body's myopic, always has been. And," he adds, before she can say anything, "before you say anything, I refuse to even consider Lasik, or anything of the sort." He shudders, mostly for effect. "You lot are barmy, you are. Can hardly even get yourselves off the planet, and you think your technology's sufficiently advanced to go lasering your eyes. Completely daft."

"But-" She blinks at him. It's highly endearing. "I always figured the specs were for show, to make you look all brainy and clever. Is it to do with, you know, the metacrisis thing? You didn't need glasses when I first met you. "

"Nope. Old me had bad teeth and big ears, but good eyes. New me has good teeth, good hair, and bad eyes. Regeneration is a bit of a crap shoot, really. "

"Like life, I suppose," she says. She cocks her head to the side and looks at him, deep and intense, and in an instant, he's back to being his new, bewildering self. The pressure on his chest returns, intensified, and it's hard to breathe again. He wonders how humans live their whole lives like this, slaves to hormones and pheromones and rampant, disobedient emotions. "What do you suppose he was really thinking, leaving you here with me? Donna said it was meant to be a gift."

The doubt in her voice stings, probably more than it should. "You don't believe her?"

"I think she believes it," Rose says, with a little sideways shrug. She is still looking at him. He wishes, stupidly, that she would stop, just for a moment, so he could take a normal breath. "But she's got his brain now, hasn't she? She'll see it the way he does."

"And how do you see it, then, with your very own, very singular brain, Rose Tyler?" The words are sharp and brittle, shattered glass ripping their way out his throat. He doesn't really want to know the answer just yet, but can't stop himself from asking.

"Dunno, exactly," she says, calm where is he so suddenly, irrationally angry. "I don't think my opinion matters much. I'm sort of stuck with you, aren't I?"

That's enough to force him to his feet, out of the chair, so he can turn towards the fire and not have to see her staring at him, deconstructing him with her eyes, cataloging every difference between the original and the inferior duplicate. "Hardly," he manages, finally, when the silence has dragged on for far too long. "I can look after myself. I don't need a nursemaid. I've managed by myself for centuries-" but he has to stop then, because he hasn't, has he? And maybe he does need a nursemaid. He's been alive for less than a day, and has already managed to wipe an entire species out of existence.

"That's rubbish," she says, and he chokes on a bitter, bruised laugh. He was rubbish as a human; he's rubbish as a part-human also, apparently. "You're as big of an idiot as he is. Don't know why I'm surprised by that."

"Oi!" That's Donna's reflex. It makes him flinch, to hear her in his voice.

"Look at me," she says, insistent and unintentionally seductive, standing behind him, so close it makes him shiver, her breath hot on the back of his neck. He turns around reluctantly, because, this near, he's not sure he'll be able to resist touching her, and if he does that, he's not sure he'll be able to resist anything at all. There's so much he doesn't know about himself.

Rose is impossibly, ridiculously close. Whatever hesitation she felt before about approaching him, she's obviously gotten past it, decided he's close enough to _him_ to count. He wonders what he's done, or said, that's changed her mind – and wishes he himself could be so easily convinced that he's good enough.

 "You never were easy to understand," she says, _this_ close, hands – gods – landing gently on his hips. He jerks back, but it's futile. She just presses closer. "And the way you talk sometimes, it's confusing. On purpose, innit? You go really fast, with a lot of big words, and they don't always mean what they should." She's looking up at him now, eyes wide and gorgeous, and he is rooted to the spot, frozen, heart pounding again, so fast and so strong – it can't be healthy, he thinks, for a heart to work that hard. "But I'm pretty sure you proposed to me on that beach, so when I say I'm stuck with you, it's in a good way, yeah? It's not like you're some sort of _obligation_."

"But that's exactly what I am," he says, low and bitter and already tired of himself. He'd spent most of his last regeneration this way, weary and angry and resentful. He doesn't want to spend the rest of his shortened life this way, but he doesn't know how to stop.

"No more 'n I'm your obligation, then," she says. "Seems to me that when he left you here, the Doctor wanted more than just for me to watch out for you." Her fingers press into his hips, intimate contact, and it burns, makes him flush, makes him hard. It's banal and human and utterly humiliating, but Rose just grins in obvious delight and presses herself more firmly against him. "He wanted you to watch out for me, also," she whispers into his ear. "The gift was meant for both of us."

She is standing so very close, he can barely think. He doesn't understand at all how humans manage to live like this. Perhaps they don't. He's only part human – perhaps he's got the worst of both species now. When he finally manages to speak, he's startled to hear his own voice, low and harsh and ragged, full of wanting. "Rose," he rasps, "an hour ago you wouldn't even look at me, and now you're —"

"An hour ago, you didn't want me looking at you," she says, rubbing up against him, which is just – _gods._ "You looked like you were ready to go haring off, just to get out of your own skin."

He was. He still is. He would do, if it would change anything.

"I think he was wrong, you know," she says. "About you being too dangerous to be left on your own."

"He's not wrong," he answers. "He's not – I destroyed the Daleks, Rose, I killed them – "

"They needed killing." She is very matter-of-fact about it, staring into his eyes, so open he couldn't stop himself reading her mind if he wanted; her thoughts are practically bleeding out into the air. She means what she is saying. Believes it fully, every word. "They needed to be destroyed, but he – he didn't see that. He'll never see that. He thinks everyone can be saved, but they can't, sometimes. Sometimes they just can't."

He sighs. "It's not that simple." Not for him, and definitely not for _him_.

"I never said it was simple," she answers. "Just that you could do what he couldn't." She looks at him, really looks at him, and it makes him dizzy. "You told me you loved me," she says, right up against him, and he is utterly lost. "Whispered it right in my ear. He didn't. Why was that, do you think?"

"I'm not him," he manages, barely. Looks like him, certainly; thinks like him, to a certain extent, yes; but he's _not_ the Doctor, definitely. It's been less than a full day, and it's already clear to him how very much he is no longer the Doctor. The air's gone thin again, and he's starting to feel a little lightheaded. He thinks he might be panicking. "I don't know what he was thinking."

"But you know _how_ he thinks." She's unstoppable, inexorable, like the interplanetary tides, the woman who took the Vortex into herself to save the universe. "An' so do I, at least a little bit. And do you know what I think?"

He swallows, too fast and too hard, so his voice comes out choked and strangled. "No."

"I think," she says, her mouth inches from his own, "that he couldn't say it. That he didn't even want to, because he's a Time Lord, and Time Lords don't do that sort of thing. But you, you're part human. It's more than just the aging part, yeah?"

She pushes against him again, and it takes every shred of self-control to stifle a groan. Heat flares high in his cheeks, and low in his groin. "So it would seem."

She's delighted, and undulating against him in a way that is making it very, very difficult to keep hold of even a single coherent thought. "You know, I've been right up next to you loads of times, but you never reacted at all. I thought maybe you just weren't – that maybe Time Lords don't –"

"We don't," he mutters. "Used to, aeons ago, but then it became all about genetic transfers and optimised nucleic recombination, and with the looms, there's no need for physical intimacy; it's considered bad taste to even talk about it, actually  –"

Her hand has drifted down from his hip, and she strokes him through the front of his trousers, slowly and with definite intent. He does groan then, which makes her grin in a very devilish way that is completely unnecessary. Still grinning, she kisses him, and he kisses her back helplessly. When he pulls away finally to breathe – he seems to need so much air, now; he wonders whether it's the absence of a respiratory bypass – "We're in the library," he reminds her, a little desperately.

She is unperturbed. "'s all right. Mum and Pete are having playtime with Tony, and the servants don't come in here. Anyway," she adds, "I locked the door when I came in. Didn't want you scarpering."

"Couldn't do. I don't have any money."

She laughs at that. "Never stopped you before."

"I had a TARDIS and a sonic screwdriver before," he says ruefully. "Anyway, where would I go? Everyone I know on this planet is in this house." Which has never stopped him before, either, but it feels very different now, even though he's not quite sure why it should. There are a lot of things that feel different now; this is just one of them, and hardly the most important.

"Well then," she says, whispering into his ear, "I suppose I'm stuck with you after all. We'll have to make the best of it." She is pressed up so tightly against him that he can feel her heart pounding, a rapid flutter against his chest. Her fingers are still wandering, doing naughty, wonderful things; he can't figure out what to do with his own hands in return.

She kisses him again, long and sweet, and he has to swallow, hard. "I don't actually know what I'm doing, you realize."

"It's all right," she says, laughing against his lips. "I imagine you'll be a quick study."

In that, she turns out to be correct.

~~~

"I think," he says, from his somewhat awkward position on the floor, "that I understand Jack a lot better than I did before."

"Oh really?" She is smug in voice and face and attitude, lying propped up on his chest, her elbows digging uncomfortably into his ribs. Despite the discomfort, he's not remotely inclined to tell her to move.

"I think I understand all you lot much better now," he says. "If nothing else, I finally understand why there are so bloody many of you."

Rose laughs. It makes her breasts press against his chest in very interesting ways. "Nine hundred years of traveling with humans, and your entire viewpoint of us changes with just one shag?" She runs her fingers lightly across his shoulder. It makes his breath catch hard in his throat. "I can't wait to see what you think after we've had a go in a proper bed."

"It's entirely possible," he says seriously, "that I won't be capable of thinking anything at all at that point. Possibly not ever again."

"I seriously doubt that."

Rose settles a little more comfortably against him, resting her chin on her folded hands, and he lets himself relax. His skin has stopped itching, the sense of dislocation has faded, and his heart rate has settled into something that would pass for normal in a full human. It's some special kind of glorious just to _be_. "Would you have gone with him, if he'd asked?"

She's silent for a long time – well, 48 seconds, but it feels much longer – before she sighs, her breath gusting lightly across his chest. "That's not fair," she says. "He didn't ask."

"But would you, if he had?"

"Possibly," she says. "Maybe. I don't know. I wanted to. I spent two years trying to get back to him, and I thought – I was so _sure_ – but I don't know, now. He couldn't tell me that he loved me."

"But he did love you. He _does_. More than anything in a very long time."

"I know." She sounds a little regretful. "But he couldn't tell me. And we'd never have had this. I don't think –" She breathes, in and out. "It's not worth wondering about, really." Then she's quiet again for a bit, just breathing, and he breathes along with her. "There isn't another you in this universe, you know. I looked through all the Torchwood files. There's no mention of a Doctor, or any Time Lords."

He hums in agreement. "We don't exist here. Time Lords are – were – unique to our universe. We've never stumbled across any others, in any other universe."

"But you looked, yeah?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Wouldn't you?"

"Of course. It's just – I just want you to know, you're not a duplicate, here. You're the only Doctor we've got, the only Time Lord we've got."

"But I'm not him," he says. This is very important. It bears repeating. Over and over, if necessary. "I can't be him."

"I don't want you to be him," she says, and she is so very serious. "I want you to be _you._ And I'm not here with you because you look like him, either, or because he said I should do. This isn't about me settling for some inferior copy."

He breathes in deep. "I _am_ a copy."

She lifts her head, and smiles contentedly at him. "Maybe so. But you're definitely not inferior."

He grins, wide and delighted. The smile, he realizes, _his_ smile, is unchanged. "I do love you, Rose Tyler."

She grins back at him, just as wide, and far more beautiful. "Quite right, too."

 


End file.
